Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague's fundamental point that these strong social programs, as he puts it, do help alleviate community concerns.
Let me give the House some examples of that. In a study by Wood et al in 2004 about the Vancouver situation, there was a significant drop in the number of discarded syringes, injection related litter and people injecting on the streets one year after the InSite location had opened. That means, as the member points out, that people are not shooting up in alleys and dropping syringes by schools, they are going to a supervised site.
Secondly, I would point out that at those sites, there are trained nurses. If people are ready, willing and able to seek treatment and detox and get off drugs, that is what they are there for and they will help the addicted person to achieve that.
There are also all of the benefits that come from that, economically and otherwise. First of all, wasted lives, getting people off of drugs and getting into productive lives is certainly something that we really cannot put a price on. Secondly, the cost of less law enforcement, less hospitalization and so on are some of the benefits that, as the member said, clearly outweigh the costs.